The first thing the UK’s new Labour prime minister has done is remove their GST-equivalent from electricity, which will bring power prices down. That’s a win for his first exam question as leader: are you doing the things that voters say are the things?

No.1 issue in the UK and New Zealand is the rising cost of things you can’t do without; petrol, electricity, food. Andy Burnham promises a “cost of living government”.

Contrast that with National’s ads attacking Labour on tax. Negative, hard to read, and only indirectly to do with prices.

Josie's column on what New Zealand can learn from the UK is here.